[PROJ] OSGeo incubation status

[Martin Desruisseaux]

Thanks Sebastiaan for looking at it! I'm not a lawyer neither, but my 
understanding is that what PROJ is doing is re-licensing (not to be 
confused with sub-licensing), which is disallowed by almost every 
licenses I'm aware of, even the MIT license. Repackaging the data in a 
different format does not erase the creator copyright, in the same way 
that re-encoding a movie in a different video codec does not erase the 
movie creator rights. However the situation is not so problematic: it 
does not necessarily force users to do an extra step, it depends on the 
policy chosen by the project using PROJ (more on it below).

PROJ 6 and later are already complying with most EPSG conditions: it 
does not modify the data, new data (e.g. IAU data) are not attributed to 
EPSG. The main remaining condition is to inform users about EPSG terms 
of use, and not give them the impression that they are under MIT 
license. The approach can be as below:

1) Put EPSG data in a separated directory or repository, with a clear 
LICENSE file containing a copy of EPSG terms of use and a link to the 
http://www.epsg.org/TermsOfUse.aspx page.

2) Make the EPSG database optional (even if obviously strongly 
recommended) for PROJ working.

3) Projects using PROJ have a choice:

  * They can bundle the EPSG database directly in their software if it
    is okay for them to inform users about EPSG terms of use when they
    download the binary. Many projects show the license on the web page
    where users download the software, and it is not uncommon that there
    is more than one license. In my understanding if that page said
    clearly the licenses of all material in the software (including EPSG
    terms of use), it is okay.
  * Alternatively, some projects refuse to add any licenses stricter
    than their own license. This is the case of Apache foundation, where
    even LGPL code are not accepted in Apache projects. Apache projects
    like NetBeans workaround this problem with a popup windows shown the
    first time that the application is started, which offer to download
    the material under non-Apache license. It is only one click for the
    user, and is required only for projects who don't want to bundle
    EPSG terms of use in their software from the root.

So for example QGIS could offer two downloads: a 100% free version where 
downloading EPSG database would be a separated step, and maybe (if the 
foundation driving the QGIS project is fine with that) an alternative 
download with EPSG database bundled in it, but with also the EPSG terms 
of use "bundled" with the license of that version.

Having material under a stricter license is not uncommon in open source 
project. Apache projects are facing this situation many times and 
developed different ways to address that, Linux distributions have 
"non-free" repository (e.g. for proprietary video drivers), etc. 
Furthermore putting the data in a separated directory is desirable even 
if we didn't had licensing issue because the main source of CRS 
definitions is currently EPSG, but ISO is also working on that. So in 
the future we may have 2 sources of definitions, probably with different 
tradeoff to chose.

     Martin


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/proj/attachments/20200124/8b63011a/attachment-0001.html>